Chapter 3 Chapter 2 Italy Silvio Berlusconi: The most successful red-capped businessman in history

In Italy, since 2001, the position of richest man has been occupied by a man, and in his introduction, two titles have always accompanied him - one is the Italian media giant, and the other is more straightforward. : Prime Minister of Italy.The person who occupies such a rich and powerful "throne" is called Silvio Berlusconi. In the 2005 "Forbes" list of the world's richest people, he ranked 25th with a personal net worth of US$12 billion. Berlusconi's wealth mainly comes from the news corporation he controls, which is the leading comprehensive media group in Europe. It owns a TV company including three TV channels, one of Italy's largest publishing groups, a large advertising company, a film The production company, as well as two large newspapers, and its MOL Online is also a highly visited portal site in Italy.At the same time, Finn West, controlled by Berlusconi, is the most influential multi-category conglomerate in Italy. Its business scope includes television, film, publishing, real estate, supermarkets, finance and insurance, etc.In Italy, Feining West is the second largest private group after Fiat Group.The economic department of the Italian government even regards Fenningwest's operating data as a weathervane of the Italian economic trend.

Huge wealth gave him the opportunity to be famous, but what makes people remember him is by no means wealth. To a large extent, it is his identity as the Prime Minister of Italy, his legendary experience during his tenure, and his uniqueness. due to solitary behavior. Silvio Berlusconi: The most successful red-capped businessman in history, Berlusconi is short in stature and has brown and black curly hair.Like ordinary Italians, he likes watching TV, wearing double-breasted suits, always laughing and talking; he is hospitable, likes to invite foreign dignitaries to his villa in Sardinia for vacation, and likes to call himself They are very good friends; he has a good singing voice, he once hummed Neapolitan tunes with US President Bush, and chorused a French folk song with former French President Mitterrand. It is said that his solo album is very popular in Italy He often has unexpected ideas. For example, he once proposed to ask Libyan leader Gaddafi to mediate the Iraqi crisis. He also wanted to invite Russia to join the European Union...

In May 1994, he won the Italian national election in one fell swoop, successfully ascended to the throne of Italian Prime Minister, and formed the 53rd post-war Italian government.But on November 22, when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hosting the World Ministerial Conference on Combating Organized Transnational Crime in the southern Italian city of Naples, he unexpectedly received a summons from a Milan court asking him to attend the court in person. He was questioned by a judge in the case of his family business bribing the tax police.This also opened the beginning of his record as the first serving prime minister in Italian history to be interrogated in the future. (On May 5, 2003, Berlusconi testified in court, thus creating an Italian record.) In court, Berlusconi surprised everyone, pointing to himself and telling the judge: "Everyone is equal before the law. , but this person (referring to himself) deserves more equality than others, because more than 50% of Italians have given him the power to rule and manage this country well." Different scenes, half of them are enthusiastic applause and cheers, while the other half are mocking boos.Of course, this isn't the only time Berlusconi has made a fuss.

Berlusconi has long claimed he is the victim of a politically biased justice system.According to him, since he entered politics, the judiciary has opened dozens of investigations into his business activities, drafted 87 legal documents against him and his business interests, and judicial officials visited the offices of his family business. More than 470 times, more than 1,500 court hearings were held about him alone.Most of these allegations revolve around his merger with SME in the 1980s. SME company is a big company in Italy in the early 1980s. In 1985, Prodi, chairman of the Italian Renaissance Group, agreed to sell the company to Benedetti's Buitoni Group for 497 billion lire.The Prime Minister at the time, Clarke, believed that the price was too low and ordered relevant departments to re-examine the merger, and at the same time suggested that his friend Berlusconi participate in the bidding.In the end, Berlusconi, Barilla and Ferrero jointly won the "cake" at a price of 600 billion lire.Benedetti filed a lawsuit, but a court in Rome ruled against him in July 1986.In the end, Benedetti had to sell his food-related companies to avoid competition with Berlusconi and others. SME was divided into three companies shortly after being acquired by Berlusconi, Barilla and Ferrero, and was finally resold to Benetton, Nestle, Unilever and other large companies between 1993 and 1994 at a transfer price of up to 2 Trillion Lire (approximately 1 billion Euros).This transaction brought huge income to the Berlusconi family, but it also caused him a lot of trouble. Later, in order to punish corruption, Italy launched an anti-corruption operation called the "Clean Hands Campaign". The investigation into the SME bribery case in China and the regulation that politicians no longer have immunity, so there was a scene of the prime minister being interrogated. In January 1995, after only nine months as prime minister, he had to resign as prime minister due to pressure.

Although he reluctantly left the prime minister's seat, Berlusconi is by no means a person who gives up easily. Perhaps as a businessman, this is the most basic quality of him - Berlusconi continues to pursue politics. In 1996, Berlusconi tried to make a comeback, but in the general election contest, he lost to the olive-green coalition and became only a member of parliament.However, relying on its strong economic strength and the domestic influence he established through football, the political party he founded, the Forza Italia Party, won the election in 2001, and as the chairman, he naturally became the Prime Minister.

At the campaign meeting, Berlusconi praised himself and said: "The reason why I have very little hair on my head is because my brain is full of wisdom, which does not allow hair to grow." Public opinion was in an uproar, but this was not the end.In a TV chat show show, Berlusconi asked the host to smell his cologne, and he said: "I smell holy." In the end, he praised himself: "Only I can save Italy." What else can others do besides questioning and protesting? But the legendary story had a new ending in 2005. In April 2005, Berlusconi had to resign as prime minister again.So many people believe that this is the inevitable result of his unscrupulous remarks. Of course, this is a later story.

Apart from being a controversial prime minister, Berlusconi, like all Italians, loves football. In the 2000 European Cup, the Italian team lost to the French team.On the second day of the defeat, he accused Dino Zoff: "I didn't make a good head coach. If I sent someone to mark Zidane, I wouldn't lose." Zoff resigned from the national team angrily.Zidane apologized to Zoff after learning of the incident, declaring: "This is the worst game I have ever played for France." Of course, any protest or ridicule can't change the fact that Berlusconi is the Prime Minister of Italy; at the same time, he is currently the richest person in Italy.Although he can't keep his mouth shut, his self-made entrepreneurial history and keen sense of wealth are undoubtedly worthy of the convincing of all those who admire or dislike him.

On September 29, 1936, Berlusconi was born in a middle-class family in Milan, an important industrial and commercial city in northern Italy. His father was a bank clerk.Berlusconi has been smart since he was a child and knows how to manage money.The young Berlusconi was not rich, and he relied on his own ability to support himself when he was in college, which indirectly provided excellent material for his future legend.A few years later, when people mentioned him, they still talked about two anecdotes about him: one was that he sold vacuum cleaners while he was in school; the other was that he sold singing on a yacht in Milan.Especially the thing about selling and singing is widely known. On October 31, 2003, as prime minister, Berlusconi released an album of love songs, which became a record in the history of Italian prime ministers.

After completing his studies, Berlusconi then went to work for a construction company. By the 1960s, Berlusconi began to build his business empire. In 1962, Berlusconi established his first company, Milan United Construction Sites. In 1969, he bought a plot of land on the outskirts of Milan with 300 million lire borrowed and built a large number of apartments for 14,000 residents.As the European and Italian economies were booming, the Milan area was very expensive, and Berlusconi's wealth also expanded rapidly.In this way, Berlusconi completed the first primitive accumulation of capital.Later, as a well-known builder, he was awarded the title of "Knight of Labor" of the Italian Republic, and since then he has the alias of "Knight".

In 1974, Berlusconi began to target the radio and television industry, which was not eye-catching at the time and was not optimistic about the market.But he was not in a hurry to establish his own TV station. Instead, he founded a financial investment company to invest in many small and medium-sized TV stations that were in urgent need of capital investment at that time. The second largest enterprise Medialanum. Before the 1970s, Italian law stipulated that only the state could operate radio and television business, and the media was a state monopoly, and private individuals had no chance to get involved in this field.It was not until 1975 that Italy passed laws allowing private individuals to establish regional radio and television organizations, but their programs could only be broadcast in the region.So Berlusconi found another way to squeeze into the national TV advertising market.He bought a large number of TV programs from abroad, especially American movies and TV series, and sold them to regional TV stations at a low price, and he made profits from the pre-roll advertisements of these film and television programs.

At the end of the 1970s, the national monopoly of the Italian radio and television industry was broken. Berlusconi founded Italy's first national private TV station - "Channel 5", and later he bought two other TV stations - " Italia 1" and "Fourth Television Network".At that time, there were more than 1,000 TV stations in Italy, but in the mid-1980s, many private TV stations went bankrupt due to brutal competition, but Berlusconi gained a reputation in the Italian TV industry with his outstanding business experience. The television ratings are very high, even on par with Italian national television.Since then, Berlusconi has continued to increase his stake in the state-owned TV network company.By the end of the 1990s, Berlusconi had controlled 90% of the domestic TV market in Italy, and achieved the goal of controlling the RAI national TV station through increasing equity.In addition, he also actively explored the international market and successively established his own TV stations in France, Germany and Spain. At the same time as his foray into broadcast television, Berlusconi has also been hastening his forays into other, more lucrative industries.He successively acquired some newspapers, weekly magazines and large publishing groups, establishing his dominance in the Italian media field.He controlled "Today" in the 1970s, bought the weekly magazine "Smile and TV Music" with the largest circulation in Italy in the 1980s, entered the Mondadori Publishing Group in 1989, and made it the largest book in Italy publishing group.He owns the best-selling Time, Panorama, and other periodicals, and has Telecom Italia under his control. By 1986, Berlusconi's TV station had occupied 80% of the national commercial TV market share. In 1990, his book publishing group occupied 30% of Italy's book market share, and more than 50 magazines published at the same time accounted for 38% of Italy's magazine market share. A huge media kingdom has emerged. In recent years, facing the Internet boom and the rise of new media, Berlusconi has established Mediaset on line (MOL) and Newmedia to provide online content services.He also launched an interactive television business.Although the strength of MOL cannot be compared with Internet giants such as America Online, its development in Europe is quite remarkable. As early as 2001, a financial company in Milan disclosed that Berlusconi's actual assets at that time had reached 11 billion euros.He controls 150 companies, including Italian investment banks and insurance companies, which bring him an annual turnover of 4 billion to 5 billion euros. Berlusconi included all the companies he controlled in his core enterprise, the Feiningwest Consortium, making the family-owned consortium the second largest private group in Italy after the Fiat Group. Since 2001, Berlusconi has been sitting firmly as the chief of the Italian tycoons.In 40 years, he has successfully completed a series of economic expansion from scratch, from small to large, and he himself has jumped from a child born in a middle-class family to a world-class rich man. In Europe, it is no news that industrial and commercial giants are in charge of football clubs.The owner of the French Marseille team is the French media tycoon Tapie, the backstage of the Italian Juventus team is the Agnelli family of the Fiat Group, the owner of the News Corporation Rupert Murdoch owns the British Manchester United, the newly appointed richest man in the UK and the former No. 2 rich man in Russia Abramovich Ramovich was included in the Premier League powerhouse Chelsea.And in Italy, since this country has already had three world championship honors, Italians have a special feeling for football.Like all Italians, Berlusconi also likes football, and he will not turn a blind eye to the economic benefits of football.With the unique vision of a businessman, he successfully entered the Italian football industry. In 1986, when the AC Milan club was on the verge of bankruptcy, Silvio Berlusconi bought the team at a low price and became the chairman of the club.Relying on his wealth and wealth, he paid a lot of money to hire the gold medal coach Saki, and spent a lot of money to recruit Gullit, Basten, Rijkaard and many other stars who are known as the "Three Musketeers of the Netherlands".With the support of Berlusconi, AC Milan rose rapidly and swept the European football world. It won three European Champions Cups and four league championships. In the 1990s, it created a glorious "AC Milan Era" in European football. Berlusconi entered the sports industry, one of the pillar industries in Italy, in one fell swoop through the AC Milan club.He used AC Milan's advertising, star transfers, souvenir sales and other income to obtain huge profits.Not only that, but relying on AC Milan's excellent record, he has greatly improved his popularity and support in Italy.With his strong financial resources, a powerful media empire and the support of AC Milan fan clubs all over the country, he successfully entered the political arena and ascended the throne of Italian Prime Minister twice. Berlusconi started from nothing, from an ordinary student to become the richest man in Italy, what did he rely on? This question seems a bit ridiculous to Berlusconi, because for him, this is an extremely simple question, and many people understand this truth very well, that is, to seize the opportunity. In the 1960s, at the time of the great development stage of the rise of the Italian domestic economy, all walks of life were vigorously developing and developing.Berlusconi is keenly aware of the business opportunities contained in this. He believes that the start of the economy will definitely lead to an increase in demand for real estate. This is a golden opportunity.Therefore, he decisively devoted himself to the real estate industry.He borrowed money to buy land and build apartments in the suburbs of Milan, thus earning his first pot of gold in his life. And when his career has achieved something, he did not stop there, but kept exploring better opportunities and grasping new high-profit industries. From this, he discovered the media, a relatively monopolistic emerging industry, and took it as a new industry. Main industries developed by themselves.Through a series of operations, in the end, Berlusconi completed his media empire plan and became a member of the Italian bourgeoisie. Since then, Berlusconi has discovered the huge wealth and profit margins contained in football.Therefore, when AC Milan was on the verge of bankruptcy, he bought it at a very low price and transformed it, including inviting gold medal coach Sacchi and introducing a large number of outstanding players such as the "Three Musketeers of the Netherlands", thus creating a A generation of "Dynasty of Milan".According to data, when Berlusconi first bought the AC Milan club, he only spent tens of millions of dollars, but now AC Milan can bring him a huge income of more than 200 billion lire every year-AC Milan has already become a club. One of Berlusconi's fastest money-making machines. In the history of world media, Rupert Murdoch is a legendary figure. Since he came into contact with news at the age of 22, in the past 50 years, this "media magnate" has continuously acquired more newspapers, more The TV station has created the largest and most international comprehensive media company in the world today.With a net worth of more than $40 billion, the core businesses of the group include the production and distribution of films and television programs, over-the-air, satellite and cable television broadcasting, newspaper, magazine and book publishing, as well as digital broadcasting, encryption and viewing management systems develop. Berlusconi has striking similarities with Murdoch in the operation and management strategies of media companies. The only difference is that Murdoch operates globally, while Berlusconi focuses more on Italy. . There are so many similarities between Murdoch and Berlusconi that it would be more accurate to describe them as "heroes see the same thing".These two world media leaders both discovered the huge benefits of the media, so they devoted their entire lives to it; and when they discovered the high profits behind football, they both bought football clubs one after another. ——Murdoch is the owner of the famous British Manchester United team, while Berlusconi is the owner of the Italian AC Milan team. Although Berlusconi entered the football industry before Murdoch, he is a pioneer in the sports industry, but in other aspects, Berlusconi is more learning from Murdoch. Among Berlusconi's Fenningwest Group, the success of Maddie Arthur Media is the brightest.The road of continuous mergers adopted by Maddie Arthur is to imitate the mode of operation of the world media tycoon Murdoch.After achieving success in China, Madison actively explored the international market, and successively established television stations belonging to Madison in France, Germany and Spain. To this end, Murdoch became Berlusconi's best friend.Berlusconi allowed Murdoch to hold shares in Italian pay TV and Italian satellite TV; Murdoch helped Berlusconi develop the international TV market.This practice of holding each other and helping each other has greatly accelerated the pace of expansion of Maddie Arthur.Berlusconi used Murdoch's method to completely control the TV advertising revenue rights and sports news broadcast rights in Italy.Recently, the Italian Sky Satellite TV Company, which was founded by Madison Media Company with an investment of 70 million euros, started broadcasting in July 2003.These successes are inseparable from Murdoch's help. Many magazines and newspapers have summarized Berlusconi as follows: Berlusconi, a successful businessman, a failed prime minister. Indeed, his achievements in commercial wealth are unmatched in Italy.Although he is now facing multiple charges of tax evasion, money laundering, colluding with the Mafia and bribery, people have also noticed that none of the accusations that have been filed over the years have been convicted, which has somewhat consolidated Berlusconi Authoritative position in the domestic financial circles. At the same time, Berlusconi's reckless drive to achieve his goals and his outspokenness often endear him to others, including Italy's President Ciampi. Once, a proposal of the "New Media Law" submitted by Berlusconi was deliberated in Italy. From all aspects, the implementation of the new bill will greatly benefit the Fenningwest Group controlled by Berlusconi in the Italian media field. Therefore, Berlusconi can seek greater wealth and interests, and because of this, the introduction of the bill has aroused great controversy in the country.Finally, when the bill was submitted to President Ciampi for his signature, the President did not buy it either. He said that this new law may conflict with judicial decisions and may create a media monopoly, "bringing Berlusconi's control of the media to an unmanageable level." accepted by the people” and thus refused to sign.Such an open confrontation with the ruling government is rare for an Italian president in the role of nominal head of state. Internationally, Berlusconi is under even greater pressure. On July 2, 2003, the second day after Berlusconi took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, at a regular inquiry meeting of the European Parliament, Berlusconi made insulting remarks to a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and even compared him to a Nazi concentration camp. Commander, thus triggering a political crisis between Italy and many countries in Europe. But the eloquent Berlusconi is also a stubborn Berlusconi. For the international condemnation, he refused to apologize from the beginning to the end; for the president's "losing face", he cleverly used legal weapons to get the president to finally sign the decree. . And even Berlusconi's enemies have to admire the indomitable drive in his character.Giorgio Armani, the founder of the internationally renowned brand Armani, once advertised that he "never talks about politics", but he publicly expressed his appreciation for Berlusconi: "What attracts me most about Berlusconi is his adventurous spirit that is never afraid of making mistakes. He is like a perpetual motion machine, always moving forward. It is because of this that he can create amazing wealth in so many fields. This is also the philosophy of life I believe in." We all have our ups and downs in our lives, but the hard times always pass.